Flawed
by Captains Shadow
Summary: Those who get left behnd suffer unbelievable torment, especailly when all you can smell is the stench of rotting flesh. When Jack gets left behin in a world that's dead, will he survive? NOT Torchwood See inside for Warnings.


**Story:** Flawed

**Part: **One

**Rating: **R

**Warnings: **This story contains graphic self-harm and suicide attempts. In later chapters there will also be slash (homosexual relationships).

**Paring/s:** Jack/ Tenth Doctor

**Notes:** This is a Jack-centric story focusing on the aftermath of _Bad Wolf/ Parting of Ways_. It should also be noted that this is set after Rose leaves, that Jack doesn't join Torchwood and that the _Runaway Bride_ and episodes after are yet to happen. Very AU. This is just a two part-er.

**Spoiler: **"Nowhere is safer than here Doctor." The Doctor shook his head. "No Jack," he whispered, "all I do is cause people pain."

"**NO!"**

Jack's eyes went wide with horror as he saw the TARDIS shimmer into non-existence in front of him. He'd been left behind, completely and utterly alone. Just the thought was enough to drive him insane. He sank back against the wall and willed the tears not to come. How the hell was he going to get out of a mess this big?

He slid down the wall and ran his hands though his hair. Stuck on a space station with people; no problem. He could talk to someone, keep his mind occupied, but stuck on a space station with no one within a hundred light-years… he was going to go mad…

As much as he hated himself for it, tears started run down his face. He flopped down onto his side and curled into a tight ball, wishing that this living nightmare would just go away. Choked sobs wracked his lean frame as the salty water splashed down onto the floor. He tried to take deep breaths to calm himself, but what could he be calm about? He was stuck in the middle on nowhere, with absolutely no one anywhere near him. Calm? _Calm?_ Right now his brain wasn't even registering the meaning of the word.

Slowly but surely his survival training kicked in. His breathing evened out and he sat up, wiping the tears from his eyes. The first thing all new Time Agency cadets were taught was how to be completely self reliant. Trust no one. The second was how to survive while being completely self reliant. Find food, find water and make sure to keep warm or cool depending on the situation.

Jack staggered to his feet. He was pretty sure that the Doctor had sucked up a fair bit of power creating the Delta Wave, so he knew that he couldn't rely on the station for heating. It was going to get cold. And once it got cold, it wouldn't be long before the generators could no longer maintain the life support systems. So he'd been brought back to freeze and suffocate… wonderful.

He walked around aimlessly for over six hours. Every room that he entered was littered with bodies. Some of their faces looked peaceful, but most were twisted in agony and fear.

_Die as a human or live as a Darlek._

Jack shuddered as a wave of nausea threatened to consume him. Some of the bodies were already starting to decompose. Before long the smell was going to be unbearable. He moved on through the wreckage trying to fight the despair that bubbled in his chest.

He stepped through the shattered door of one of the Big Brother houses. There were no bodies in here and as he made his way into the kitchen, he could see that the cupboards where well stocked with food. He sank down into the green hand-shaped chair and stared aimlessly around the reality show set. The occupants had left clothes and other items scattered around. The room was in chaos but he could see books and magazines lying on couches and tables. Through a doorway he could see an inviting looking bed, a warm doona spread out on top of it.

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The smell was getting unbearable. Even though he had sealed up the door that led out to the rest of the station, the smell still seeped through. He'd lost all track of time long ago and the only thing that he knew for certain was that soon, the generator was going to fail. It was bitterly cold even under the layers of blankets and jackets that Jack had accumulated. He had run out of food and he knew that if he broke the seal of the door, the smell was going to make it impossible for him to find more. Most of it had gone bad towards the end anyway. He hadn't slept since the Doctor left and the hunger pangs had ceased. He knew he was going to die.

Slowly he uncurled from his position under the blankets. He rolled off the bed and sank to the ground. Layer by layer he stripped off the jackets until all he had left on was his own white shirt and vest. He reached for his knife that he constantly carried and pressed the blade firmly to his left wrist. He drew a shuddering breath laced with the stench of death and with one smooth movement, sliced open the vein in his arm. He was so numb from the cold that he didn't even notice the pain. His hands shaking, he drew the knife down his right wrist, twin slashes marring his arms.

He expected to feel light-headed from the blood loss but as Jack looked down he realised that the cuts weren't bleeding nearly as much as they should. He picked up the knife again and cut deeper, but it made no difference to the flow. He rolled up his shirtsleeve and made a shallow incision near his shoulder. It should have been enough to bleed well, but it oozed a few seconds then stopped.

"Great. Asphyxiation it is then…."

It was only then that he realised that he could no longer feel the cold.

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The stench was now over powering. The only reason why Jack wasn't throwing up was that there was nothing left to vacate his stomach. It didn't make the nausea go away or stop the tears streaming down his face. He could hardly breathe because of the smell and his arms were now covered in cuts from attempts to kill himself. If nothing else, the cutting gave him something other that the piles of dead bodies to think about.

He hauled himself to his feet. Damn the smell, he knew had to find something to eat. He was surprised to find that he could still walk straight through the loss of blood, the lack of food and the sleep deprivation. He was so used to the cold that it barely bothered him now. He moved silently through the darkened rooms. The lighting had been reduced to half power soon after the heating had failed.

As he extended his hand out towards the door, he realised that he was too numb to feel anything. He slapped himself in the face as hard as he could, but the only way that he knew it had connected was that his head snapped to the side. On second thoughts, he couldn't hear anything either. He tried yelling at the top of his lungs but he couldn't hear a sound. He couldn't hear his heart beat or any of the usual buzz in his ears. It was as if the emptiness was starting to swallow him up. With a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, he became aware that the smell didn't bother him any more.

Jack stared out into the hallway. Rotting corpses lined the walls. As he moved out of his self imposed prison cell and picked his way through the maze of rotting flesh, the enormity of the event occurred to him. The human race had been massacred. Only those who lived on off-world colonies or other satellites had survived. In one blow, the human race had been almost exterminated. All that was left was rotting corpses.

Jack made his way to the top of the station. Piles of ashes and tangled snakes of wires were strewn around the area. The Doctors Delta Wave was charged and ready to be fired. Jack walked over to it and pulled six wires out of the back of the detonator, short circuiting the device. He watched as the monitor showed the power level of the detonator draining, unfortunately not back into the games station generator. He fiddled with a few of the controls until he found the one that brought up a display of the stations power grid. He sealed off the top level and shut down power to all other areas, buying him another day or two of life support.

He glanced around at the other screens panels, searching for anything of use. His eyes fell on the communications desk. It had a large crater in one side rendering it non-operational. Then he glanced down at the detonator. The circuitry used to create the Delta Wave was similar to that of the communications. He sank down next to the chunk of metal and pried off the casing. With a little bit of reconfiguration, he could make a basic interspacial distress beacon. Pulling out the main circuit he began detaching and re-attaching the primary and secondary cables.

It wasn't long before his fingers were shredded from the wire and sharp edges of the circuit boards. He barely noticed when one of his nails ripped off as he tried to remove a stubborn cord. Just as he linked the final cable to the newly assembled device he started to have difficultly breathing. He looked up at the monitor show the power levels. They had fallen past the critical level and the words _TOTAL SYSTEMS FAILURE _flashed up on the screen. He hit the activation button on the side of the beacon. The red light flashed for six seconds, and then everything went dark.

The light stopped flashing and Jack was left totally alone with the knowledge that he had just depleted the power supply. Suddenly he felt a crushing pressure on his chest and he realised that there was no more oxygen. It was only seconds before he finally passed out.

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If anyone had the ability to survive in the extreme environment that Satellite Five had become, they would have heard a miracle arriving. It sounded like nothing else in the universe; a thrumming that came and went as if it was fading in and out of existence. If they had been standing in the same room that Jack was currently lying in, they would have seen an eerie blue light slowly seep into every corner of the darkened space. They would have seen a blue Police Box materialise and a man wearing a pin stripe suit and glasses step out into the carnage.

The Doctor trusted the TARDIS to ensure he had oxygen as he sprinted towards the lifeless body. He fell to his knees at Jack's side as the ship extended the force field to cover both of them. He reached out and touched the cold cheek as tears slipped from his eyes.

"Oh Jack, if only I'd known." he whispered. He slid his hands under the mans shoulders and started to move him towards the blue box. Tears made it hard to see his friends face, but once he had him safely inside, he wiped them away and placed a gentle kiss to his temple. As his lips touched the cold skin he felt something. A faint, but steady, beat.

"God…"

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Sound was the first thing that pulled Captain Jack Harkness out of his deep sleep. It was the sound of a wireless playing some tune back from World War Two on Earth. And someone was humming along. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he was warm and that there was no smell before he let himself drift back to the security of sleep.

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Again sound reached him first. He could hear someone moving around beside him. Darkness greeted him as he opened his eyes, but it wasn't the kind that he had experienced on the station, there was a relaxing blue glow coming from some unidentifiable source. He twitched his hand felt it move over some sort of soft fabric and the rustling beside him stopped.

"Jack?"

He started, his breathing quickening. He didn't recognise the voice or the hand that gripped his own in an attempt to reassure him.

"Jack, it's alright. It's the Doctor." The voice whispered, closer to him now.

"Doctor… you sound-"

"- different? Its okay. Different face, same man. They call it regeneration." A hand reached out and ran through his hair, soothing him. "You're going to be okay now."

"Doctor…"

"Shhh Jack. Everything's okay."

"I'm sorry."

"If anyone should be sorry, it's me. And I am. I left you behind and let you suffer." The Doctor whispered gently. "I left and you nearly died."

"It's not your fault." Jacks eyes snapped open and he struggled to sit up. "Where's Rose?"

The Doctor placed a hand on his chest and guided his body back down onto the bed. Jack noticed that his hands were smaller and his fingers thinner than they had been in his last incarnation. "Jack, I know it hasn't been all that long for you, but Rose and I, we travelled for a year after loosing you." He paused and looked away from him for a moment. "Back in her time, people were tearing through the fabric of space and existence itself. Long story short, she got caught up in it and there was nothing I could do to bring her back."

"She's dead…"

"No." He turned back to him and Jack could see the light bounce off his glasses. "She's in an alternate dimension. With Jackie and Mickey…. And her Dad."

"Her dad's dead."

"But he's alive in the other dimension."

Jack closed his eyes. "It's weird."

"Makes your head spin a bit, doesn't it."

"No." he whispered turning his head so their eyes were locked. "I never thought I'd see you again."

The Doctor said nothing, but he removed his glasses and gave Jacks hand a squeeze.

"That place. It makes you believe that you don't exist anymore. Like you've been erased from life. It's unbearable. But there was one thing that crossed my mind as I was there, before I got so far down. Thank God Rose is safe. For a brief second, that was all that mattered. Is she safe Doctor?"

He nodded. "She's far safer than when she was travelling with me."

"Nowhere is safer than here Doctor. The safest place in the universe is standing right at your side."

The Doctor shook his head. "No Jack," he whispered, "all I do is cause people pain. You've heard what they call me, 'the on coming storm'. I have that name for a reason."

"Doctor, if all you do is cause people pain, if you are as dangerous as you say you are, how am I still alive? Do you know what we're taught at the Agency? The first thing we are taught is to trust no one. I have only ever trusted one person, and I trust you for a reason Doctor."

They sat in silence for a while, in the darkness everything was calm. The Doctor closed his eyes, steeling himself for what he was about to ask.

"Jack, I can't imagine what you've just been through and I don't even want to try and I know that it is going to take a long time for you to heal after this, but if there is anything that I can do-"

"Doctor, I am alive, and I am with you. As far as I am concerned, I am in heaven."

The Doctor was glad for the dim lights, as he was fairly certain that his face had turned a delicate shade of scarlet. He found that in this new form his emotions ran away with him more. He leaned back into the comfy chair that the TARDIS had provided, settling in for the long haul. As he glanced at Jack, he grinned; his friend had already fallen asleep.

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The tea was far too strong and bitter for his liking. Jack wrinkled his nose in disgust and placed the cup delicately to one side.

The Doctor laughed. "Would milk and sugar help?"

"I don't think there is any way of salvaging this… particular brew." He said as he glared at the inanimate object.

"Down the sink?"

"Down the toilet."

"Oh come on, it can't be that bad."

"Try it."

The Doctor reached for the cup and raised it to his lips, took a sip and spluttered. "How can anyone murder a cup of tea? It's tea!"

Jack snickered and signalled a passing waitress. "One coffee and another pot of tea." The blond nodded and smiled at him. The Doctor noticed that Jack made no attempt to flirt with the pretty young girl. In fact, he hadn't given anyone a passing glance since they had arrived on 21st century Earth that morning.

"Okay, now I know something's wrong."

"What?" Jack protested, pouring the complementary packs of sugar into the tea.

The Doctor snatched the last one out of his hands. "Don't waste them, and don't even try to avoid the subject."

Jack hung his head. "Look, I'm just not feeling so crash hot."

"But to pass up a young blond? That's not the Jack I know. You flirt with anything on two legs, or three if you count that man for Turmon Five."

"I feel different now Doctor. Like I've got the weight of the world on my shoulders. I just don't see the point to some shit now. I guess I'm feeling my own mortality."

"Jack, I don't think you are mortal. Not anymore anyway." Jack glanced up. "When I found you. There was no oxygen left in the entire station. You should have been dead. No one should have been able to survive that."

As the coffee and tea arrived Jack stared out over the Thames. He stirred sugar into his coffee then locked eyes with the Doctor. "There's something else. While I was there I tried-"

"I know Jack, I saw your arms."

"But the thing was," he raised the mug to his lips, "no matter how deep I cut, I wouldn't die. It wasn't as if…" he put the mug down and pressed the heals of hands to his eyes. "I've done it before."

There was a tinkle as the Doctors spoon dropped to the table. He fought hard to keep the shock off his face.

"Back at the agency, just after they took my memories, I slit my wrists. My boyfriend found me. Not long after that, I went AWOL. They deemed me mentally unstable, which is why they haven't come after me. This isn't something that I'm new to. There were times when I couldn't get through the day without cutting. It was calming." He sipped his coffee and the Doctor continued to stir his. "I was totally addicted at points, and at others, I could take it or leave it. I don't want to be immortal, I don't want to live to the end of time."

The Doctor wasn't one for uneasy silences so he hailed the blond waitress and paid their bill. "Come on, let's go back to the TARDIS."

Jack nodded and didn't even notice the when the girl waved coyly at him as they left.


End file.
